Charter's fight with school district mired in court

In this April 26, 2012 photo, Bronze Monroe shows off her spots during the “Bugz Show” performed by the kindergarten class at the Graystone Academy Charter School in Coatesville. The school district is attempting to revoke the school’s charter. Staff Photo by Vinny Tennis.

WEST CHESTER – A scheduled hearing in Common Pleas Court on Graystone Academy Charter School’s dispute with the Coatesille Area School District has been continued.

Graystone is requesting the court permanently halt hearings on the school board’s move to revoke its founding charter.

School district attorneys have requested that the case be moved to U.S. District Court in Philadelphia. They say Graystone is violating the district’s Constitutional rights under the equal protection clause by trying to halt the hearings.

Vince Champion, an attorney with the firm of Rhoads & Sinon of Harrisburg, which represents the district, said no hearing dates had been scheduled in federal court in the matter. The case has been assigned to U.S. District Judge J. Curtis Joyner.

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The hearing that was scheduled before Judge Ann Marie Wheatcraft will be held in abeyance until the federal court acts on the district’s request to transfer jurisdiction.

Meanwhile, the emergency injunction forbidding the board from holding public hearings on its move to revoke Graystone’s charter that Wheatcraft signed in December remains in effect. The hearings were scheduled to start on Dec. 5.

The school board in November notified Graystone it intended to revoke its charter, the second time in two years that it has done so. The board generally contends that the school violated the state’s charter school law, and its own charter, by reducing the number of grades offered to students of the school.

The school contends the board acted in violation of the charter law by seeking to hold public hearings overseen by an appointed hearing officer, rather than having the school board members preside over the hearings themselves.

In its request for an injunction, the school also argued the revocation the school board approved in 2011 is still pending before the state’s Charter Appeals Board. Thus, the board was acting on a revocation before the earlier revocation was finally decided.

The board and Superintendent Richard Como, Graystone’s attorneys said in their injunction request, “have acted in contravention to the Charter School Law and the Sunshine Act by announcing hearings to be scheduled to revoke a charter that has already been revoked, unilaterally appointing a hearing officer that has previously prosecuted a revocation proceeding against Graystone, and by failing to hold the hearings in person,” wrote attorney Brian Leinhauser of the West Chester firm of Lamb McErlane, representing Graystone.

In response, the district said that by seeking to keep the board from proceeding with the public hearings about the school’s alleged charter violations, the school was violating its rights under the 14th Amendment.

“In attempting to halt the public hearings and attendant proceedings, (Graystone) is depriving (the board) of their interest in ensuring that the charter is operating in accordance with various laws, and its written charter” and “depriving its students of the right of a proper education,” school district Solicitor James Ellison wrote.

The board issued a notice of revocation to Graystone in November, in the wake of news that the charter school had stopped offering classes to students in sixth through eighth grades; it now operates as a kindergarten through fifth-grade school.

Graystone was formed more than a decade ago to focus on young students in the district, many of whom are minorities whose parents felt they were not being served by the district’s programs.

In June, Graystone’s Board of Directors voted to eliminate its sixth- through eighth-grade classes, saying that it would better meet the needs of the community by concentrating on the lower elementary grades. It also eliminated the position of chief executive officer.

Later that month, Coatesville superintendent Richard Como announced an outreach effort to the students who had been displaced by the charter’s move.

The district presented figures showing that the district had more students score proficiently on the state standardized tests than Graystone both overall and in every subgroup they are required to report to the state.